(photo courtesy of Mark Miller)
Over the weekend, one story that emerged was about the many elders passing from Covid-19 among our indigenous populations.
"Every time one of those elders leaves this world, it's like a whole library, a whole beautiful chapter of our history, of our ceremonies -- all that knowledge, gone," Clayson Benally, a member of Navajo Nation, said. "It's not written, it's not dictated, you're not going to find it on the internet."
It would be difficult to compose a more eloquent and timely tribute to our inter-generational connections than Mr. Benally's statement. For millennia, human beings were born, raised to adolescence, mated and reproduced, and died young. Each generation came and went with precious little history being recorded, save for the art of cave drawings long before writing was invented.
Only as civilizations emerged due to the invention of agriculture did grandparents become a viable possibility. People simply didn't live long enough until then. So to all my peers in their 70s and older, let's be grateful we're able to be here and pass on what stories we know from our predecessors.
Few of us who have reached old age would equate our knowledge of the land where we live with those native elders, but we too have things to pass on, both practical and spiritual, to those who come after us.
When I first moved into the house where I am now staying last March, my grandson came to me to ask if I knew anything about fishing -- one of his current passions.
"Maybe a thing or two," I answered.
Several hours later, after the stories tumbled out of me and we had gone through every one of the items in his tackle box, including lures and flies he'd never tried out, I heard him tell his parents:
"Grandpa sure knows a lot about fishing."
Actually, his Grandpa does not actually know a lot about fishing from personal experience. Yes, I've done it a lot but was never very successful at it. My mind tends to drift off when I am fishing in ways that render me oblivious when something strikes the line, making the bobber go under and the line grow taut, and me jerk back to present tense and say, "Whaaat!".
No, what I told him was received wisdom from my father, in the photo here, who was the true fisherman in the family. And a fair number of the lures in my grandson's tackle box came from him, as did some of the flies, which he tied personally.
My Dad died around this time of year, in the early days of 1999, twenty-two years ago and eight years before my grandson was born, so they never met. That would make me the hinge connecting the generations; between the three of us our birth years were 1915, 1947, and 2007, so we pretty much span a century.
When I started writing fiction, very little of which I have ever published, one of my first stories was about cleaning fish in an old fish house with my father at a campground in Ludington, Michigan.
The sights and the sounds and the smells in that fish house are as vibrant for me today as they were over six decades ago. But nostalgic feelings are not the point here -- passing on knowledge is the point.
My stories for my grandson were not gratuitous musings of an old man, but my attempt to give him some practical knowledge that could prove useful in the future. As much as I hate to contemplate it, climate change will generate climate refugees, and living off of the and may well become necessary in his lifetime, or the lifetimes of his descendants.
So it's good to know something about how to gather food in the wild.
In order to catch his prey, my father learned to think like a fish. He was a keen observer of their habits and preferences; he more or less figured out what he would do in any situation if he were the fish.
That made him an extremely effective angler. He caught lots and lots of fish while other friends and acquaintances landed few.
Everyone my age has similar stories of things their parents did that we may or may not have excelled at personally, but now could be passed along to the new generations hungry to learn. Children ask the operative questions; just let them in and you will see this is true.
***
Here is the new(s):
* Recorded phone call reveals Trump desperately tried to pressure GOP officials in Georgia to overthrow the election results, blatantly threatening them and engaging in probable extortion. (WashPo/CNN)
* This is in fact a 21st-century coup attempt. (John Dean/CNN)
* Pence Welcomes Futile Bid by G.O.P. Lawmakers to Overturn Election (NYT)
* Amid Isolation And Loneliness, Elderly Face Crumbling Safety Net (NPR)
* Cruz, cadre of other GOP senators call for probe of baseless voter fraud claims (WashPo)
* Nancy Pelosi has been re-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. (NBC)
* Thousands of minority-owned small businesses were at the end of the line in the government’s coronavirus relief program as many struggled to find banks that would accept their applications or were disadvantaged by the terms of the program. (AP)
* British judge set to rule on extradition of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to U.S. (WashPo)
* A historic nine-month advance is raising expectations that coronavirus vaccines and stimulus programs will keep markets surging in 2021. (WSJ)
* Wall Street Eyes Billions in the Colorado’s Water -- Investor interest in the river could redefine century-old rules for who controls one of the most valuable economic resources in the United States. (NYT)
* Former Walmart Pharmacists Say Company Ignored Red Flags As Opioid Sales Boomed (NPR)
* Vaccination is going slowly because nobody is in charge (WashPo)
* Some of America’s largest businesses say they will encourage—but not mandate—employees to get Covid-19 vaccines (WSJ)
* Treehouse teaching and laundry art: Educators use creative methods to reach kids (WashPo)
* Rebel fighters in Central African Republic attacked and partially occupied a diamond-mining town on Sunday, four security and humanitarian sources said, a day before authorities are due to declare results of the presidential election. (Reuters)
* The Russians behind the widespread intrusion into government and corporate networks exploited seams in U.S. defenses and gave away nothing to American monitoring of their systems. (NYT)
* Targeted Killings Are Terrorizing Afghans. And No One Is Claiming Them. (NYT)
* All 54 African countries put together have registered fewer Covid deaths than France. That doesn’t mean people aren’t dying from the virus. (NYT)
* Fleeing Lockdown, Americans Are Flocking to Mexico City -- Hospitals are at capacity and coronavirus cases are surging, but many foreigners, especially Americans, are heading to the Mexican capital — some intending to stay awhile. (NYT)
* Man Unknowingly Purchases Lifetime Supply Of Condoms (The Onion)
***
"Listen to Your Heart"
I get a notion from the look in your eyes, yeah
You've built a love but that love falls apart
Your little piece of Heaven turns too dark
Listen to your heart, there's nothing else you can do
I don't know where you're going and I don't know why
But listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye
The precious moments are all lost in the tide, yeah
They're swept away and nothing is what is seems
The feeling of belonging to your dreams
Listen to your heart, there's nothing else you can do
I don't know where you're going and I don't know why
But listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye
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